MobiKwik in talks to raise over $60 million before end of fiscal

MobiKwik is also set to launch a host of financial services such as personal loans, insurance and zero interest loans to its users. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

Hyderabad: Mobile wallet company MobiKwik is in talks with various investors to raise over $60 million before the end of the current fiscal, the company’s co-founder, Upasana Taku, has said. She also said that the company, through partnership with a few banks and NBFCs, is all set to launch a host of financial services such as personal loans, insurance and zero interest loans to its users.

MobiKwik expects these value-added services will help break-even in the next 18 to 24 months. “We have raised USD 130 to USD 140 million so far. In August we raised USD 33 million from Bajaj (Finance). And we were looking at raising a complete round of USD 100 million (which includes USD 33 mn raised from Bajaj),” Taku told PTI during her recent visit to the city to participate in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit-2017.

“We are in talks with some of the investors. We may raise it before the end of the current fiscal. We are speaking to a clutch of investors- American, Asians as well as Indian investors,” she said. Taku further said that Mobikwik as a wallet has 65 million users and two million merchants accept the payments across the country.

According to her, currently promoters and some of the senior officials of the company hold about 60% stake in the company while the rest is held by various investors such as South Africa’s payments major Net1, Sequoia Capital and American Express among others. Explaining about the new services that they are going to offer, the company’s co-founder said the offering will include KYC, loan disbursal process and collection through the app.

The idea behind the new initiatives is to leverage the user base to increase the earning per customer over a period, she said. “We have already done a lot of pilots. We are looking at launching lending in the next twenty days or so. We have tie-ups with various banks and lenders. We will be launching in partnership with few NBFCs and a few banks,” Taku said.

“By adding these financial services what we are doing is we want to earn more per customer. So we are looking at a part profitability that in the next 18 to 24 months we should get profits,” she said. Taku said they will continue to invest in the company as the market is growing and is demanding.